


that stupid, awesome book of his

by ellisfifellis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Crushes, Dorks in Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Kissing, Lots of Angst, M/M, Space Dad™ Shiro, Space Mom™ Allura, i headcanon that keith draws in secret, i love that that's a tag, klance, so here is a fic based on that, these tags are not in order in the slightest wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:42:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7376701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellisfifellis/pseuds/ellisfifellis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yeah, I know. I messed up. ‘Don’t blackmail the other paladins’ is what, rule three? But I still don’t know why he’s so freaked out. It’s– it’s never been this bad,” he murmurs, wringing his hands together.</p><p>★</p><p>Lance has accepted that Keith is an all-around Bad Boy™. So when he finds a sketchbook in Keith’s room, he’s a little bit surprised. </p><p>aka keith is soft and squishy inside and lance finds out</p>
            </blockquote>





	that stupid, awesome book of his

**Author's Note:**

> first time writing for voltron! very exciting. unbeta-d, so please forgive any mistakes, and be sure to tell me about them! i just want to show how soft and squishy keith is inside. (plus obviously we need more hot space dad shiro and hot space mom allura, amirite ;) )

Lance… didn’t really have a good reason for rooting around in Keith’s room.

Honestly, he didn’t even come up with a reason for himself to believe, let alone anyone else, if someone happened to walk in. Although he could just blackmail them by saying they were doing the same thing. Unless it was Keith. Which it wouldn’t be, since he would be in the training room again, sweating after exerting himself for ages, black shirt sticking to the muscles in his back.. (Not that Lance payed attention to that.) The most plausible excuse he had come up with was ‘he’s distracting us from his sketchy past with all that hair and, since I am the only one who saw through it, I thought I would investigate’.

Keith’s room was fairly empty, which made the task easier. Lance would have expected his room to be, like, _cooler_ — band posters, pictures of motorcycles, that kind of thing on the walls, but nope. Nada. Not a thing personalised in the whole space, except a cute picture of the whole Voltron team together, smiling, laughing or pulling stupid faces, and a photograph of Keith’s little shack back on Earth, both framed and sitting side by side on the bedside table. The rest of the room looked exactly like what everyone else’s had when they’d first arrived at the castle: bare and white and boring. At least there wasn’t any dust anymore. Keith’s drawers were full of thrown-in clothes, unfolded and very, very tempting, considering Lance’s tendency to keep his room spotless. It was when he was checking in the drawer under his bed that he found it.

A notepad!

Perfect blackmail material. Probably like, a diary or something. Where Keith moaned about his Bad Boy Troubles and how angsty he got over his perfect mullet being the subject of his endless torture, or how his general handsomeness caused all his woes. There was even a pencil stuck in the top, through the spiral, which was presumably what he wrote it with. Who wrote with a pencil, anyway? Actually, Lance figured it was exactly the kind of pompous thing Keith would do. Rub out all his mistakes so even his diary entries were perfect. What a weirdo. But when he sat on Keith’s bed, and flipped open the first page, it was not what he expected.

This wasn’t a diary. This was a sketchbook. The first page had rough pencil lines outlining what looked like the view of Arus from Keith’s window, but it was hastily done, like he was trying it out. The next page had some more detailed sketches, and mostly of Red Lion, which Lance figured was a good subject, since it didn’t move much. Gradually, the further in he got, the more detailed it became — and the more their squadmates popped up. Pidge, from the side, hunched over some complicated piece of tech with Rover floating above; Hunk, snoring on the couch; Allura and Shiro, talking together in the control deck. Coran even appeared a few times, although the focus seemed to be, weirdly, on his moustache. The space mice were frequently pictured, squeezed into corners and spaces between sketches. But there was someone missing.

Lance wasn’t anywhere in it.

Confused, he flicked through all the front pages where there were drawings, and he couldn’t see himself once. Not anywhere. Did… did Keith actually dislike him enough– _hate_ him enough to not even draw him once? Lance felt disappointed, but in less of the crushed ego sense (although that was definitely part of it) and more in the ‘uncomfortable pit in the bottom of his stomach because his feelings were genuinely hurt’ kind. He was entirely blindsided by the latter. Since when had Keith’s opinion of him ever mattered to him this much?

He blinked away the weird itchiness in his eyes and stood up. Like it mattered. Like _Keith_ mattered. If it came down to it, he was certain that this sketchbook was good enough blackmail material to get him something in the future. Lance made sure that he put everything back where it belonged — it would definitely bug him later if he’d forgotten something, and almost certainly more than it would bother Keith — except the sketchbook, which he left open with the pencil next to it on the table. Now if he mentioned it, Keith would accept his story that he came into his room and it was just sitting there open.

That was something, at least.

★☆★☆★

It was at least a week (you can’t blame him for not keeping track of how many times the earth circled the sun when they were in a separate galaxy) later when Lance finally found an opportunity to use his new blackmailing material against Keith. He had done something unbearably embarrassing in front of the other boy, and by the look on Keith’s face, he was about to spill it to the rest of the crew. But Lance would not let his grave mistake see the light of day.

(He may or may not have _actually_ fallen into a cryopod and frozen this time. No one else would ever know.)

“Dude, I swear, if you tell anyone about this–”

“What, you’ll kick my ass? You’re welcome to try,” Keith said, irritating Lance into even more of a state than he already was. And that was saying something.

“Nooo, I’ll tell everyone about your _drawing habit_.” The barely-held-in laughter stopped immediately, and Lance grinned triumphantly at Keith, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to cock a hip out, very proud of himself. The expression he saw was exactly what he’d wanted to see; Keith’s navy eyes were blown wide in surprise, and his mouth hung open slightly, soft lips forming a near-perfect ‘o’ shape. Lance wished he had a camera, to capture the moment of his victory perfectly.

“How… how did you find out about that?” Keith murmured, brows knitting into a confused, frowning look. His eyes kept meeting Lance’s and then darting away again. _Embarrassed? Perfect_.

“Well,” Lance began, stretching his arms out and then linking his fingers behind his neck, looking at the ceiling, “I was looking for you, just because, and I swear, I looked _everywhere_ , but I couldn’t find you! So I checked your room, where I saw a notebook on the desk, and so obviously, I looked at it.”

“You looked… in my sketchbook.” Keith sounded utterly defeated. Weird. Lance had expected anger, or… no, okay, he had only expected anger. He risked a glance and found Keith to be pointedly not looking at him, but the ground, with– was that a _blush_ on his cheeks? What?

“Yeah, man. Good stuff, too, but if you haven’t shown anyone, I figure you don’t want anyone to know, so–”

“Obviously I don’t want anyone to know!” he barked, snapping, eyes flitting for just a moment to meet Lance’s gaze before moving to look at the floor again. “Just… you obviously don’t… never mind. Just don’t mention it to anyone, okay?”

“Only if you don’t mention my ‘cool trip’, if you catch my meaning,” Lance quipped, snapping finger guns at his rival. “Then yeah, I won’t mention it.”

Lance barely heard a “Good.” muttered as Keith stomped away. His secret was safe. Both of their secrets.

★☆★☆★

It wasn’t until two days after that Lance realised he might have seriously screwed up. Occasionally, after a bad fight, the two wouldn’t talk for a while — it had been one day, at the longest, that they had given each other the silent treatment because of such an incident. But considering their close proximity, and the necessity of working as a team, it was hard for them to stay (as) mad at each other. Before they knew it, they would both be laughing at one of their teammates’ antics, and they would lock eyes, and they both knew that they were fine again.

Not this time.

Keith actually still talked to him, this time. He still laughed, but it was… different. Worse. More hollow. And Keith never, ever looked at Lance right after, either, and the tight feeling in his chest increased with every time the opportunity for eye contact passed. They spoke when they needed to, or just for little things, but there was no ribbing like before. No… chemistry? Nothing. It was like their whole relationship disappeared. The others noticed, too, and he got questions galore about it, but he couldn’t tell anyone because he would give away his and/or Keith’s secret. He always passed it off as Keith being broody, which the group seemed to accept, if tentatively.

It still hadn’t gotten better in _two whole days_. They’d never gone this long like this, and never like this. Dread settled deep in his belly and sometimes, he forgot about it, but every time he glanced at Keith, there was that dreaded dread again. Shiro, unsurprisingly, was the most concerned about it.

“What’s going on with you two?” he asked Lance as he took him aside, for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day. Before he could even start, Shiro interrupted him, saying, “The truth, this time, please.”

Well… surely Keith wouldn’t mind Shiro knowing about his sketchbook? With the way things were in the castleship, he would be surprised if Shiro actually _didn’t_ know. Gossip was passed around fairly quickly, and secrets were hard to keep amongst people they spent practically every second with. He would find out at some point. It might as well be now.

“Fine, dude. Fiiine. So basically, I did something super embarrassing which is totally never going to be spoken of, and Keith saw, and he was _definitely_ going to tell the rest of you, so I brought up his sketchbook, because he draws, y’know? It was secret, but I saw it in his room, and I said that if he told anyone about what I did, then I’d tell them he drew. He’s like, really good at it, _really_ good, so I don’t know why it’s a secret, but he got super weird when I mentioned the sketchbook.” At Shiro’s disappointed, flat look, accented by a single raised eyebrow, Lance sighed.

“Yeah, I know. I messed up. ‘Don’t blackmail the other paladins’ is what, rule three? But I still don’t know why he’s so freaked out. It’s– it’s never been this bad,” he murmurs, wringing his hands together.

Suddenly, Shiro’s hand was on his shoulder, reassuring him. “Try talking to him,” he said quietly, a tiny hint of a smile on his lips. “Start with the apology, then explain why you’re apologising after. It’ll be fine.” He slapped Lance on the back, then went back into the training ring, joining Keith to fight off a level 4.

“Thanks, _dad_ ,” Lance muttered under his breath. “But how the fuck am I going to get him to listen to me?”

★☆★☆★

He was still sulking and trying to think of a way to trap Keith into listening to his apology when Allura found him sitting alone in the control room, back against the main control panel, elbows resting in his drawn-up knees. He should probably have been scheming in his room, since she was nearly always here, for whatever reason, but the faint blue pulsing of the Balmera crystal is soothing, somehow. She sat next to him, cross-legged, graceful in every movement. He meet her gaze to find her azure blue eyes on him, looking softly. She almost seemed like she… pitied him? Weird.

“Hey there, Princess,” Lance ventured after a few ticks of silence. She smiled.

“Hello, Lance. What brings you to the control room?” He sighed, buried his face in his arms, and mumbled a quiet _'Keith'_. Allura laughed a little. “I apologise, I do not speak arm.”

Somehow, Lance managed to drag his head up and out of his arms enough for his words—word—to make sense to her.

“Ah, I suspected that might be it. I always thought you would be the one to tell him, first, you know,” she said conspiringly, nudging him with her shoulder and smiling a little. “I also thought you would be happy. Maybe this is some strange Earth thing.”

Lance was so confused that he can’t get any actual words out. “Y– you thought– thought what? What?” Allura blinked a few times, looked around, and then appeared to come to a realisation.

“Oh! Never mind. I have some… important navigation to do! Excuse me!” Before she could escape, Lance caught her arm, bringing her down to sit next to him again.

“Lady. We’re in the control room. Where the navigation happens?”

“O– oh, so we are, how silly of me,” Allura said quickly, blushing, and he was pretty sure that this time, it was not from his roguish charms. She was flustered by her frankly _terrible_ attempt at evasion.

“What did you think I would tell Keith?” The princess seemed to panic for a little longer, before sighing and relaxing her muscles.

“You would find out at some point,” she muttered, almost glaring at herself. Lance couldn’t fault her logic — he’d used it himself, just earlier that day. “Keith likes you back, Lance.” For a moment, Lance didn’t process what she’d said properly, all functions in his brain dying, before jumping back into hyperspeed action.

“Firstly, _I don’t like Keith_. What is _with_ you people? I see the way Pidge looks at us when we’re together. It’s all weird and suggestive. It’s not– we’re not a thing!” By the way Allura looked at him, he was fairly certain that she disagreed. Whatever. “Secondly, Keith doesn’t like me. In fact, I’m pretty sure that he hates me! I wasn’t in that stupid, awesome book of his, but everyone else was. It’s pretty obvious what his feelings for me are.” By now he was standing, and Allura was too. He’d be worried about shouting at her, except he hadn’t actually been shouting, mostly just tiredly rambling, even if the weight on his chest made him _feel_ like he’d been shouting. He shook his head dejectedly.

“Lance–” Allura started, placing a hand on his shoulder, mirroring Shiro from earlier. Since when did he have two more parents?

“I– just, give me some time, okay? I’ll be fine.” He hesitantly rested his hand over hers, then walked away, sighing. There was no way Keith liked him, even as a friend, if he wasn’t in that book. Everything _except him_ was in that damn thing, and if that didn’t point out how very obviously Keith hated him, he’s not sure what would.

★☆★☆★

Somehow, he found himself on the portside observation deck. He hadn’t once been out there, but his feet had carried him there all on their own. It was gorgeous, at night, with a view of stars over sparkling water, a green forest and the little Arusian village in the far-off distance. The deck was shaped for optimal viewing, as well, a semicircle jutting out from the side of the ship, with another half-circle in the middle to streamline the foot traffic. As he walked around the deck, it was because of the inner circle that he didn’t see the feet that tripped him.

Lance fell face-forward onto the floor of the deck, barely managing to twist his head to the side to prevent smashing his nose; his cheekbone was another matter entirely, and judging by the impact, he would have a bruise right on it. Gradually, he pushed himself back up, rolling to the side a little to see what had tripped him, only to be caught in the gaze of Keith, eyes wide open in shock.

As if coming out of a trance, Keith blinked a few times and looked away, getting up and picking his sketchbook up as he went. Lance knew that this would probably be the best opportunity to talk to him, but he was getting away, and even if he got up, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with Keith’s powerwalk unless he sprinted at him. So instead, Lance swung his leg out and tripped him. Luckily, he had better reflexes than Lance, so he managed to stick his hands out and catch himself before he hit the ground, sketchbook flying.

“What the _fuck_ , Lance,” Keith snapped, turning to face him even as Lance scrambled to pick up the sketchbook and pencil.

“Sorry, sorry, I just need to talk to you! Here.” He handed the sketchbook back and levelled his gaze with Keith’s glare.

“So you thought that _tripping_ me would be a good idea.”

“It makes us even, at least,” Lance retorted, grinning. This was the most they had talked since the incident, and it made him so happy to be talking like… mostly normal, now. Keith was even keeping eye contact.

“ _You_ tripped over _my_ feet. I’m pretty sure I’m the injured party in both of these situations.” Lance thought for a moment, then shrugged a noncommittal agreement, but he would have done it again if it got Keith to actually hold a conversation with him like this. There was a few seconds of silence, and finally, Lance said the words he had been meaning to.

“I’m sorry about the sketchbook thing,” he said quietly, and watched as Keith returned to the guarded state he’d been in for the last two days — eyes cast downwards, shoulders hunched in slightly. But this time there was a slight flush to his cheeks. “It… wasn’t any of my business, and I shouldn’t have tried to use it against you. I don’t know why you keep it a secret, though, because you’re actually really good?” It came out as more of a question than he meant it to, but Keith didn’t seem to notice, instead flicking his eyes up to look at Lance curiously.

“You don’t think it’s… lame?”

“What? No, dude. No way! You’re super good at it.” He sighed. “I guess I was just a bit disappointed, since I’m not in it anywhere. I don’t know.”

Keith looked at him incredulously and spluttered, “What?”, making Lance’s eyes narrow at him.

“What what?” Keith blinked owlishly, then sighed and ran a hand over his face.

“You didn’t even see it. I’ve been avoiding you and you didn’t even see it,” he muttered, keeping away from eye contact again.

“See what? You have to tell me now, dude.” Silently, Keith flipped to the back of his notebook, and handed it to Lance. What was in it shocked Lance to the core, and slowly unknotted the dark feeling that had been in his stomach. It was, in a word, _Lance_. Entirely pictures of him. Not a single other thing or person featured in the back of the sketchbook, only him. Him training; him snoring on the couch; him peacefully resting in a cryotube after the explosion. There was a whole page dedicated to the stupid gestures he did, like finger guns or fist bumps or high fives. Another page dedicated to him _smiling_. “... _What?_ ”

“You– you’re in my book,” Keith said, almost, _almost_ lightheartedly, but there was an undercurrent of worry to his words.

“But why am I in the back? By myself?” Keith blushed, looking away, and suddenly Lance felt heat rise to his cheeks, as well.

Allura. What had Allura said? ‘Keith likes you back, Lance’? At that point, Lance had been adamant that Keith _hated_ him, since he wasn’t in the book. But now he knew he was in the book, and more than anyone else, to boot. Which meant… only one thing, really. Right?

“You… you _like_ me?” If it was even possible, Keith blushed more, and looked even further away from him. Lance contemplated Keith’s actions — if he had looked through the sketchbook, he would probably have seen these, but since he was entirely oblivious, Lance hadn’t. So Keith had been avoiding Lance because he thought he knew that he liked him? When he voiced his thoughts, Keith nodded in agreement.

“And now you know anyway,” he mumbled, flicking his eyes up just slightly to glance at Lance’s face, then moving them away again. What was his problem with _eye contact_? Jeez. He had nice eyes, the least he could do was actually like, show them occasionally.

Wait. He thought Keith had nice eyes?

Suddenly, Lance began to think about his conversation with Allura again. She had seemed like she disagreed when he had told her that he and Keith weren’t a thing. She had also said ‘likes you back’, and had previously suggested that she thought Lance would tell Keith he liked him first. And he himself had mentioned Pidge’s weird looks at him and Keith, plus it always seemed like the rest of the team looked at them the same way. So, if they all thought that Keith liked him, and they had been right about that, then maybe…

“I like you, too?” Lance muttered quietly to himself, but judging by the shift in Keith’s position and his eyes moving slowly up to stare at Lance’s face, he had heard him.

Did he like Keith? He’d had a Bisexual Crisis long ago, and had since decided that sure, guys could be cute, but he didn’t know if he’d ever like one like he liked girls. So his general acceptance of Keith’s good looks wasn’t weird to him. He’d generally made fun of him for it, actually. But most of his teasing was based on how Keith looked, which was putting maybe too much attention on it. And he did tend to search out Keith’s company more than anyone else’s. And he always felt warm and relieved after they stopped being angry at each other. _Warm_ was the feeling he felt most around Keith, really — a warm bloom in his chest when Keith smiled, or when Keith laughed, or after a tough fight when Keith would put his hand on Lance’s shoulder. That sounded a _lot_ like a crush, to him.

So maybe he did like Keith. (Oh no, Allura would be so pleased she was right. So would Pidge. Why did this happen to him?)

He snapped out of his reverie to find Keith staring at him with concern on his face. Shit, he was _cute_. How did Lance never notice that before?

“I like you, too,” he said again, more sure this time, but a blush still made its way onto his cheeks, mirroring the quickly reforming one on Keith’s face. For a while, they just looked at each other, revelling in the revelation of their mutual attraction. Lance’s eyes roamed over Keith’s face, noting his pretty navy blue eyes, the way a few stray strands of hair curled up just under his ear, his soft lips. (Seriously. How had he not know before?)  
“I, uh, what now?” Keith murmured, as they sat cross-legged across from each other, neither totally sure of themselves. Lance paused, considering for just a moment, before muttering a ‘fuck it’ under his breath and leaning forwards, pushing himself up with his hands, and planting his lips firmly on Keith’s. It was just for a moment, and he moved back before anything really happened, but it was certainly better than just sitting there staring at each other. Keith looked stunned, brushing his fingers against his lips, before glancing back up and smiling. Then he launched himself at Lance, cupping his jaw with both hands and kissing him with all his might. Lance laughed into the kiss. He supposed that this was a long time coming, really, and so it wasn’t much of a surprise how fervently Keith was kissing him, although he felt like if he let go of Keith’s waist, they would both fall over on top of him.

Actually, that wouldn’t be such a terrible thing. Instead of just falling, though, Lance used his grip on Keith’s waist to bring them both down slowly, until eventually they had to stop kissing because they weren’t aligned well and Keith’s head ended up resting on Lance’s chest. Lance wrapped his arms around him, and laughed, then laughed more as he watched Keith’s head moved with his chest.

“So drawing, huh? When did you start that?”

“I got kicked out of the Garrison, and there’s not much to do in a shack by yourself,” Keith replied dryly, and Lance could feel his smile through his shirt.

They stayed there, chatting for ages, until they fell asleep together under the stars.

(Pidge found them and took a picture the next morning.)

**Author's Note:**

> seriously, every comment is appreciated, even if you're just telling me it's sucky. i'm always looking to improve :) have a nice day! ~ellis
> 
> come say hi on twitter [here](https://www.twitter.com/ellisfifellis)!


End file.
